1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical card processing apparatus for performing both of or either one of the recording (writing) and the playing-back (reading) of information onto and/or from a card-shaped recording medium by use of a light beam.
2. Description of the Related Background Art
In a conventional optical card processing apparatus, as shown in FIG. 23, a holder 91 having a card holding portion on the upper surface thereof is supported by guide rods 93 so as to reciprocate, the holder 91 is reciprocated through a belt 92 by a drive motor 94 which forwardly and reversely rotates, and an optical head 95 to perform both of or either one of the writing and the reading of information onto/from an optical card 1 is provided over the holder 91. The optical head 95 is arranged so as to face the recording track of the optical card 1 and is moved relatively to the card 1, thereby performing the recording and/or reproducing processes of the information.
According to the above conventional optical card processing apparatus, the card holder 91 is reciprocated by the drive motor 94 which forwardly and reversely rotates, so that the switching control is complicated and the reciprocating operation cannot be performed at a high speed.
Further, since a load which acts on the motor 94 is large, a large motor is needed. The card holder transfer mechanism is arranged under the card holder 91. The optical head 95 and optical head transfer mechanism are arranged over the card holder 91. Thus, the size of the processing apparatus increases. In addition, when the optical card 1 is held by the card holder 91, the track direction of the optical card 1 is easily inclined with respect to the moving direction of the card holder 91 so that an erroneous tracking operation is performed. The conventional apparatus has such various problems as mentioned above.
On the other hand, since the center of gravity of the card holder 91 and the drive center of the holder transfer mechanism are deviated, when the card holder 91 is stopped or started, yawing and pitching of the card holder 91 occur in particular. Thus, there are problems such that a spot light which is irradiated to an optical card finely oscillates and the correct information cannot be recorded and reproduced.
According to the structure such that the optical bead is arranged over the card holder, in particular, since the vibration which is caused when the card holder is reciprocated is propagated to the optical head, the optical head oscillates and a spot light to the optical card is finely deviated. Thus, there is a problem such that the correct information cannot be recorded and reproduced.
Further, the foregoing conventional optical card processing apparatus does not have a mechanism to correct the positioning reproducibility when an optical card is held to the card holder and the angle of inclination of the card held by the card holder which is caused due to the accuracy of the shape of the optical card. Consequently, there are problems such that the dynamic range of the tracking servo must be widened and the tracking performance must be raised.
Further, according to the conventional optical card processing apparatus, since an optical card is directly attached to and detached from the card holding portion of the card holder by the manual operation, not only the attaching and detaching operations are complicated but also, particularly, there is a fear such that the attaching position of the optical card is deviated from the correct position. Thus, there is a problem of the lack of reliability. Although there is considered a method whereby as in a magnetic card processing apparatus, a pair of upper and lower conveying rollers are arranged on the inside of the inserting port and an optical card is conveyed by these rollers. However, in the case of the optical card, since the high accuracy is required in the card feeding operation, the optical card must be held by the card holder and conveyed. Therefore, in such a kind of apparatus, there is a problem such that the reciprocating operation of the card holder becomes an obstacle and the conveying roller system cannot be used.